Still slaving over pixels, demographics, and writing. I trust that your extended weekend was better. An abbreviated news roundup as the rest of the news world took a few days off.

» San Antonio Express-News: D.C. judges see Texas bias
Standard disclaimer: you’re just not following redistricting’s legal round properly unless you’re reading Michael Li’s blog. The DC Circuit court has spoken up on Texas Redistricting … and the early news is not good for the Texas GOP. There’s also some interesting tidbits in the court’s decision regarding coalition districts. It’ll be interesting to see what that means for the HD26/137/149 corridor in the Houston area. (Related: Michael has the Houston-area Organization of Chinese-Americans’ amicus brief posted for more reading on the treatment of those three districts.)

» New Republic: The Mandate Miscalculation (Paul Starr)» New Repubic: Was the Mandate a Mistake? (Jonathan Cohn)
Yeah, so I’m still with Paul Starr on this one. It’s arguable that the health care mandate cost Democrats their governing majority, although I’m also of the opinion that if Obama signed into law a mandate that we all like puppies, that would have served as a suitable substitute. Still … I think the puppy thing would have faded as an issue by now. Staking your political reputation as being a “BFD” on health care reform by forcing everyone to go buy health insurance, not so much.

» Economist: The faith (and doubts) of our fathers
I’ve always found it odd that the relatively modern “War on the Founders” was a necessary pre-condition to the Christian faith. That and creationism and forced prayer in school. Steven Waldman’s “Founding Faith” is a good enough rebuttal to the first while still noting the importance that Christian faith had in the founding.

» A bit of Greg Trivia for the few who might care: I’ve never seen Van Halen with David Lee Roth. I’ve seen Van Hagar and Van Cherone (which was a great live show, FWIW). I didn’t catch either the Sammy Reunion tour of 2004 or the first DLR Reunion tour of 2007. I did manage to take in the Sam & Dave show in 2002. Dave’s voice was shot and I left after his very horrible set. But the allure lives on. Still, I may have to entertain the idea of catching this version of the reunion for a while. At least until I see how expensive the tickets are.